D is for...

Dad.

Now before you stop reading, thinking this is going to be a tribute to my father, hang on a second and hear me out because this is really a story about Mike.

In high school, my dad started working at his current company.  Taking on this position meant he had to get up at 4am, meaning he went to bed at 8pm.  Well my high school concerts (3-4 a year) were always night concerts, starting at 7pm.  The band usually didn't go on until the second half, usually after 8pm.  You can see for yourself that this usually meant my dad would not get a chance to come to my concerts for the later years of my high school career.

My friends, being crazy, decided that the winter concert of my senior year was a great time to bring my dad to a concert.  Except they didn't really bring him.  Instead they hatched a crazy plan to get a picture of him, blow it up, glue it to a life-size cardboard cutout, dress it, and put it in the audience.

What they didn't realize was that I knew exactly what they were talking about from day one.  It really wasn't hard to figure out when they would talk about it in front of me, trying to make me mad because it was this big secret.  They even had code names.  MCKD= Mr. Caitlin K's Dad and MCKM= Mrs. Caitlin K's Mom.  Despite the fact that I knew what they were up to, I didn't realize the extent of how funny it was actually going to be when they finished the project.

So it's the night of the concert.  My mom and dad know, the band and choral directors know, almost everyone in the band knows, and they all think I don't know.  Well, I try my hardest to not go looking for it the moment I step onstage with the first ensemble.  Due to the lights it really wasn't that hard, since I could hardly see the audience anyways.  After leaving the stage I was walking in front of the audience when, bam!  My mom yells my name, I turn, and I see this guy-

Needless to say I started cracking up.  They would pick one of the outrageous pictures of him.  And they over- blew up his head.  Because his head is not actually that big.  So that it the the origination of MCKD, later referred to as just Mike. 

From his creation onwards, MCKD has provided hours of entertainment.  First when he was first put together...

After the concert he actually came home with me, meaning my dad could use his own likeness to freak out the neighbors by putting him in their campers and vans and so on...

And all was going well until he ran off!  Suddenly we were receiving e-mails with pictures of his adventures.  MCKD was making his way through the world!

And that was the last we ever saw of him.  I sincerely hope he found his way in the world.  I hope he'll come back someday to visit his roots.  We all miss him.  MCKD if you're out there, please come home!  We can have plenty of adventures together!